Neighborhood Clinics Increasing in Prominence in New Orleans Health Care System

The AP/Hartford Courant on Sunday examined how neighborhood clinics have begun to take the place of hospitals and medical centers in New Orleans because of physician shortages and structural damage to buildings caused by Hurricane Katrina. Although there are "plans for new hospitals ... no one expects a system as extensive as the one pre-Katrina," and many believe that smaller clinics "will be the future of health care -- in New Orleans and, possibly, other American cities," the AP/Courant reports. The AP/Courant profiled the efforts of registered nurses Patricia Berryhill and Alice Craft-Kerney to build and staff a no-cost primary care clinic in the Lower Ninth Ward. According to the AP/Courant, their clinic "is one of several dozen scattered across the city but one of the few offering free care." Common illnesses seen by the clinics include hypertension, uncontrolled diabetes, asthma, depression and anxiety. Craft-Kerney said, "Pre-Katrina there was an inadequate number of beds," adding that with so many hospitals closed, "it put a tremendous strain on the health care system" (Arrillaga, AP/Hartford Courant, 1/13).